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Visitors to Tate Modern are used to unusual encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an man-made sun, glided down amusement rides, and seen robotic jellyfish floating through the air. However this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this immense space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a maze-like construction modeled after the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can stroll around or unwind on pelts, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors imparting stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It could appear quirky, but the installation celebrates a obscure scientific wonder: researchers have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the incoming air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, helping the animal to thrive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "creates a perception of insignificance that you as a person are not dominant over nature." The artist is a former reporter, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that generates the chance to alter your perspective or spark some humbleness," she continues.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The winding structure is part of a features in Sara's immersive commission celebrating the traditions, knowledge, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They've experienced discrimination, forced assimilation, and repression of their language by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the art also highlights the people's issues associated with the global warming, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Meaning in Materials

At the extended access incline, there's a towering, 26-metre structure of skins entangled by utility lines. It serves as a metaphor for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this part of the artwork, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, in which solid coatings of ice appear as fluctuating conditions thaw and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' key winter sustenance, moss. The condition is a consequence of climate change, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than in other regions.

Previously, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they hauled carts of supplementary feed on to the exposed tundra to provide manually. The reindeer gathered round us, digging the icy ground in futility for mossy pieces. This costly and laborious method is having a significant effect on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the alternative is starvation. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from starvation, others suffocating after falling into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the installation is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

The installation also underscores the clear divergence between the industrial understanding of energy as a asset to be exploited for gain and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of life force as an innate life force in animals, individuals, and the environment. Tate Modern's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by regional governments. While attempting to be standard bearers for clean sources, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of windfarms, water power facilities, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and culture are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the arguments are based on environmental protection," Sara observes. "Mining practices has appropriated the discourse of ecology, but yet it's just striving to find alternative ways to maintain habits of expenditure."

Individual Struggles

She and her relatives have themselves disagreed with the national administration over its increasingly stringent policies on herding. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a set of finally failed legal cases over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara created a multi-year series of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal curtain of 400 animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it hangs in the lobby.

Art as Advocacy

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